Roy Kellerman and "the, ah, body..."

Thanks to great researchers Joe Backes, David Lifton and Doug Horne for these excellent insights and observations:


http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=146531

This is from page 4 and 5 of Horne's transcript.

Crown - (that's the White House) 26000, ah Duplex is on, go ahead

SAM 26000 - [garbled] Stand By

Duplex - (Gerry Behn) Hello

Digest - (Roy Kellerman) Ok. Jerry?

Duplex - Hello

Digest - [garbled] in here now, ah, we're at the airport, 26000, everybody aboard.

Duplex - Okay go ahead

Digest - We're waiting for the swearing in

Duplex - That is for Volunteer, is that right

Digest - Yes, we are having [garbled] before we take off, Jerry

Duplex - That's affirmative. Do you have any idea what, ah, Lace ( Jackie) wants to do and what Volunteer wants to do on their arrival here?

Digest - No, I will call you back. Suggest --we have a 2 hour 15 minute flight into Andrews. We have a full plane of at least 40.

Duplex - Ok, go ahead

Digest - I'll have to call you again after the, ah, body. However, I'm sure the, ah, Volunteer boys will go over his car and so forth. We will need [garbled] and several others.

Duplex - All right, let me know what Volunteer wants to do when they, ah, land if they want to come into Crown by, ah, helicopter.

Digest - That's a Roger. I'll call you again.

Duplex - OK
--------

Joe Backes: What does Kellerman mean? What is going on with "the, ah, body?" What is this "after" the body? Officially, its already on board and in the ceremonial bronze casket. Why does Kellerman need to call Behn at the White House again about the body?



From legendary author David Lifton:

About the radio transmissions made by Roy Kellerman:

Every word spoken by SS Agent Roy Kellerman is important, because (a) he was the senior agent on the Dallas trip and (b ) President Kennedy's body was in the Dallas coffin when it was placed aboard Air Force One at 2:18 PM CST, and was not in that coffin when AF-1 took off at 2:47 PM.

That fact can be stated with confidence because of the evidence of the sequence of arrivals --of body and coffin--at Bethesda Naval Hospital, as first published in BEST EVIDENCE in January, 1981. Here is that data:

(a) Air Force One arrived at Andrews at (approx) 6 P.M. EST - -this was a nationally televised event. The Dallas coffin was then offloaded and carried the few yards to a naval ambulance. Jacqueline Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Air Force aide McHugh got into that ambulance. Driving that ambulance was Greer, Burkley was in the front seat, and so was Kellerman.

(b ) That naval ambulance pulled away from the side of AF-1 at 6:10 PM EST --again, a nationally televised event

(c ) The arrival of JFK's body at Bethesda Naval Hospital - 6:35 PM PST

This was not televised, and is something we know from various reports. The President's body was delivered to the rear of Bethesda Naval Hospital in another vehicle -- a black hearse--at 6:35 PM.

It was in a shipping casket.

Inside that black hearse were some half dozen men in plain clothes.

The arrival of the black hearse, with the shipping casket, some 20 minutes before the arrival of the naval ambulance containing Jacqueline Kennedy, RFK, and the Dallas casket, was witnessed by Dennis David, who was Chief of the Day at Bethesda. His account (first provided to me in a telephone interview in July, 1979, and then on camera in October, 1980) is published verbatim in Chapter 25 of BEST EVIDENCE.

The time of arrival is documented in the report of Marine Sergeant Robert Boyajian, the NCOIC (non-commissioned officer in charge) of the Marine security detail. This report was first unearthed by the ARRB, circa 1998.

The shipping casket was brought to the morgue, and opened. This event was witnessed by Paul O'Connor, who was inside the Bethesda morgue, and helped open the shipping casket. Inside the shipping casket was a body bag--and inside the body bag was President Kennedy's body. The cranium was empty. These facts were provided to the HSCA by O'Connor (1977 and 1978) , and are in the HSCA Outside Contact Report of O'Connor, first released in 1993 under the JFK Records Act. They were also stated in Florida newspaper interviews, circa 1978. They were provided to me in a detailed telephone interview in August, 1978, and are set forth in Chapter 26 of BEST EVIDENCE.

These facts establish that President Kennedy's body arrived in a different coffin than the one it was in when it left Dallas, and wrapped differently (not in sheets, but in a body bag)

The naval ambulance containing the Dallas coffin, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Robert Kennedy, arrived at Bethesda at 6:53-6:55 PM EST. That fact was witnessed and reported by news reporters present at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

Since the President's body arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital some 20 minutes before the arrival of the Dallas casket, it is clear that the Dallas casket offloaded from Air Force One after the plane rolled to a halt at 6:04 PM EST at Andrews Air Force Base was empty.

But the Dallas coffin placed aboard the plane at 2:18 PM CST was not empty. It definitely contained President Kennedy's body. That coffin had just arrived from Parkland Hospital, and it left Parkland Hospital with the body inside.

From this data it is clear that something happened prior to take off at Love Field. Something happened, aboard Air Force One, when it was parked at Love Field--between 2:18 PM and 2:47 PM EST.

Just what was that "something"?

I addressed this matter--but don't present an eyewitness solution to the answer--in Chapter 31 of BEST EVIDENCE.

In BEST EVIDENCE, I wrote that when Air Force One rolled down the runway at Love Field, the coffin was empty.

That was true when BEST EVIDENCE was published;I stand by that statement today.

All I am saying here, in this post, is that Roy Kellerman, the Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge ("ATSAIC") was on the scene --at Love Field in Dallas, and at Andrews Air Force Base.

He had to know what happened; he had to be part of whatever happened.

And one other thing: it didn't happen by magic.

The President's body was inside the Dallas coffin when it was placed aboard Air Force One at 2:18 PM CST. The President's body was not inside that coffin when it was offloaded from Air Force One at around 6:05-6:08 PM EST at Andrews Air Force Base.

The senior government official on the plane was President Lyndon Johnson. And whatever happened to President Kennedy's body aboard AF-1 could not be done without permission, i.e., without a "green light" from higher authority.

There's little question in my mind that a fully unedited version of the Air Force One tapes would provide a definitive answer to the question of "what happened", and "who knew what happened" and "what justifications were provided for what happened."

For now--on this newly released tape--we have Roy Kellerman speaking just three words ". . ah, the body . . ." I trust that at some date in the future, a tape will be found with many more words, even sentences, and much more information.

In this context,let's recall President Kennedy's statement, quoting the Chinese proverb: "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Someday, I am sure, we will be able to take many more steps on that journey towards the truth.

So much, then, for the Air Force One tapes. One other matter, in the spirit of a post-script:

MY INTERVIEW WITH GENERAL CHESTER CLIFTON - 7/15/1980

General Chester Clifton was the senior military aide aboard the flight. And his voice can be heard, repeatedly, on the AF-1 tapes (and in 1980, I had the "Johnson Library Version" of those tapes, first unearthed, as I recall, by JFK researcher Fred Newcomb in Los Angeles). I had studied that tape carefully, spending hours --wearing a headset--listening to every single sentence.

After the manuscript to BEST EVIDENCE has been submitted (April 1, 1980), and the publication process had begun, I arranged to interview General Chester Clifton in his office, in Washington, D.C. The date was July 15, 1980, and the interview was an "on-the-record" affair. I had the Air Force One tapes with me, and a recorder to play them on. I also had a second recorder to record our interview. Everything was above board. No hidden recorders. Everything done with full permission. Clifton knew my book would soon be published. I will have much more to say about it in a future writing.

When I interviewed Clifton (and again, this was six months prior to the appearance of BEST EVIDENCE in any bookstore) he had no idea of the evidence that I had ascertained re the sequence of arrivals of body and coffin at Bethesda. And one purpose of my interview was to push him hard on this question: Just what did he know?

I never was able to get Clifton to admit that he had direct knowledge of what happened at the back of Air Force One. For one thing, he wasn't back there. He was at the front of the plane, where the radios were located.

As I pursued the matter--very much in the manner of "Columbo" interview ("Well, sir. . I really must ask you just one more question. . " etc), and when Clifton realized how much I did know, and that I had entire chapters of my forthcoming work devoted to the sequence of arrivals of the Dallas coffin and the President's body (and that the body had arrived at Bethesda 20 minutes before the coffin), General Clifton admitted, four times, that yes, prior to takeoff in Dallas, the President's body could have been taken off Air Force One through the rear starboard door, at the back of the plane. And that he would not have known about that.

One other thing: Clifton was no dummy, and he knew the centrality of the body as evidence, and the importance of the autopsy. In a letter I have a copy of, written by relative of Clifton, in which he describes what Clifton said to him after the publication of the Warren Report, this person writes that Clifton said "Do not believe the Warren Report."

One other matter, and this is a post-script to my post-script: In 1985, I was at Hofstra College and attending their public symposium on the Kennedy presidency. Up on stage were several former JFK administration officials. Clifton was sitting in the audience, several rows in front of me. Under discussion was foreign policy and Vietnam. During the Q an A that followed the panel discussion, he stood up, much older looking now, and almost with his finger shaking, he told them: "I remember that President Kennedy said he would never send troops to Asia" (or words to that effect. Clifton was quite explicit and his remarks were delivered with considerable emotion). This entire matter is probably recorded on film--certainly, it would be on the audio of that memorable event.

DSL
3/16/12; 5 PM PDT

Joe Backes: The decision for the body/casket and only the body/casket to go (I'm not even getting into different caskets and arrival times at Bethesda yet) ANYWHERE WITHOUT JACKIE was never a decision of Jackie's. Somebody wanted the body/casket to go, ALONE, by helicopter somewhere. That idea and the many different ways it's expressed and by many different people was never Jackie's idea.

It is speculated that the conspirators thought they could separate Jackie from JFK at some point in Parkland Hospital. That didn't happen. If you read everything that is available in the public record you'll read where LBJ was kind of pissed off that a Catholic ceremony was performed at Parkland as JFK was given the Last Rites. This delayed things at Parkland. I don't think there was anyone who was Catholic or knew anything about the Roman Catholic faith, its ceremonies or traditions in the group of conspirators who killed JFK.

Your opinion that this is just a misunderstanding and that they eventually got it together and went to Bethesda per Jackie's request is an opinion you're being guided into believing. Harold Weisberg goes into this whole "blame the Kennedys," mentality for when and where things seem odd in his book Post-Mortem.

Third, the reason I want researchers to focus in on one conversation is because something strange is going on. JFK's body is in a bronze ceremonial casket and is already aboard AF1. When it arrives and is off loaded at Andrews its empty. JFK's body arrives at Bethesda before Jackie and the Navy ambulance get there as Lifton discovered and details in his book. I believe its Dennis David, or maybe Jerrol Custer, who is carrying X-rays and/or other autopsy photos just taken of JFK when he sees Jackie and the rest ARRIVING at Bethesda.

This cannot be, if JFK is in the ceremonial casket too and is just arriving. The conclusion is obvious. JFK's body got there another way.

Lifton theorizes that they took JFK out of the ceremonial casket at some point while it was on board AF1, probably shortly before LBJ swears himself in as the new POTUS. So, for Roy Kellerman, who is THE central figure in the movement of JFK's body, to say something as odd as he does, that he needs to call Gerry Behn back after SOMETHING happens to "the, ah, body," is damn strange. He doesn't say, "I don't know," or "As far as I know a decision hasn't been made," or anything like that.